The Land of the Dead — Odysseus Meets his Mother, Elpenor, and Tiresias
💡 This is a chapter from The Wanderings of Odysseus, by C. Witt & F. Younghusband ← Go there to read the full book free online; it is also available in paperback and Kindle editions.
When they were well on their way to the shore, Odysseus told his men that the next thing they had to do was to set sail for the Land of the Dead. They received this news with cries of grief and much tearing of the hair, but at last they found themselves obliged to yield to necessity and they pushed the ship out to sea, set up the mast, and unfurled the sail.
Immediately, a favorable wind sprang up, sent by Circe to speed them on their way, and by evening they had reached the shore of the great stream Oceanus which flows right around the world. Here they met with the Cimmerians, a people who live in dense gloom and perpetual night and had never in all their lives seen a ray of sunshine.
The Greeks landed close to a grove of willows and dusky poplars and went along the shore till they came to the place that Circe had described to them.
There they halted, and Odysseus dug out with his sword a shallow pit, a yard long and a yard broad. Into this he poured three libations for the dead — the first of honey and milk, the second of sweet wine, and the last of water; over these he also strewed a measure of the finest barley meal. Then he prayed to the dead and promised that, if he should return to Ithaca, he would offer to them a cow and whatever else might be well-pleasing to them, and that to Tiresias in particular he would sacrifice a whole black ram.
After this, he slaughtered the animals with which Circe had provided him — a black ram, and a black sheep. He held their necks close to the pit, as Circe had directed, and looked away whilst he stabbed them with his sword; then, the bodies of the animals were carried off by his companions and burned upon a flaming pile of wood, which they had heaped up and set alight as an offering to the gods of the Lower World. No sooner was the pit filled with blood than the dead ghosts below the earth smelled it and came up in crowds, pressing one upon the other, in their eagerness to taste it, but Odysseus kept them off with his drawn sword, for, before all others, he wanted the wise Tiresias to drink of the blood.
Among the rest came Elpenor, who only the day before had fallen from the roof and been killed. In his case, it was no hankering after the blood that brought him, for his corpse still lay unburied in the house of Circe, and he was not yet a real shadow like the rest. He was still able to think and to speak, but this half-life was a burden to him, and he longed for the rest and absence of consciousness enjoyed by the shadows.
When Odysseus saw him and heard him complain of his misfortune, the tears came into his eyes, and he cried, “Elpenor, how earnest thou hither into the Land of Shades? Thou hast arrived more quickly on foot than I in my ship!”
With many sighs, Elpenor related what had happened to him and implored Odysseus by all that was dear to him to bury his corpse as soon as he should return to the island of Circe. “Raise, I beseech thee,” said he, “a funeral pile, and burn thereon my body and all that belongs to me; then let a mound of earth be heaped up above my ashes on the seashore, and place upon it the oar which I have used so long.” And Odysseus promised to do all that he desired.
All this time Odysseus had held his sword over the pit that contained the blood to keep off the shadows who were still pressing towards it. Amongst them he recognized his own mother, and hard indeed he found it to turn her away, but he remained true to his purpose, and presently the wise Tiresias rose up out of the earth with a golden staff in his hand. He was the only one in the Land of the Shades who retained his human thoughts — all the rest were deprived of consciousness.
He said to Odysseus, “Take away thy sword that I may drink of the blood and give thee the information thou desirest.”
Odysseus returned his sword to its sheath, and, when Tiresias had drunk of the blood, he again spoke. “Thou art come,” said he, “to ask me about thy return home. Many are the toils and dangers which thou must still undergo, for Poseidon is angry with thee because thou hast blinded his son, the Cyclops. But though many troubles are before you, yet may ye all of you reach your homes in safety, if ye beware of meddling with the flocks of the sun god in the island of Thrinacia. Should ye, however, attempt to seize those herds, then will thy companions and their ship be lost beyond recovery, and thou thyself wilt return indeed to thy home, but only after many years, alone, and in a strange vessel — and dire confusion shalt thou find in thy house.
“As soon as thou hast dealt justice and reestablished order there, thou must hasten to appease the anger of Poseidon. To accomplish this, thou wilt again have to leave thy home. Take with thee an oar in thy hand, and continue thy wanderings into unknown countries, farther and farther away, until thou hast reached a land where the inhabitants have never seen the sea, nor any ship, and therefore eat their bread without salt. I will give thee a sign by which thou shalt know when thou hast reached it. When one of them points to thy oar, taking it for the winnowing fan of a countryman, and asks thee for what purpose thou art carrying it about, then wilt thou know that thou hast attained to that land.
“There plant thy oar in the earth and sacrifice to Poseidon a ram, a bull, and a boar; and when thou hast again returned to thy house, offer goodly gifts to those who dwell on Mount Olympus. Then wilt thou live many days, and at last die in peace, and thy people will enjoy happiness and prosperity.”
“As the gods will,” answered Odysseus, “so let it be. But tell me, I pray thee, for I see yonder the shade of my mother, who stands silent and knows me not — what can I do in order to bring myself to her remembrance?”
“To whichever of the dead thou givest to drink of the blood,” replied Tiresias, “will power be given to speak with thee.” And as he said these words, he disappeared again under the earth.
When he had gone, Odysseus gave his mother some of the blood to drink, and, as soon as she had tasted it, she recognized her dearly loved son. “Why hast thou come into the kingdom of darkness?” she cried, “for strange and horrible it is to the eyes of living men! Art thou still a wanderer, not yet returned from Troy to thy home in Ithaca? And does thy wife still wait in vain for thy coming?”
“Ah! Dear mother,” was the answer of Odysseus, “it is dire necessity that brings me hither to ask counsel from Tiresias. Never again have I set foot in the land of Greece since I left our island to follow Agamemnon to the war against Troy. But how earnest thou here? Is it after long illness that thou hast died? Or did Artemis smite thee suddenly with one of her arrows? Tell me moreover of my father, and the little son whom I was forced to leave, and also of my dear wife. Say, does she still remain in my house, taking care of my goods, or has she perchance married some other?”
“Faithfully and patiently she tarries in thy house,” replied his mother, “but her days are filled with sorrow, and she weeps continually for the husband who is so long away. Thy son is grown up to be a goodly youth, but thy father has given himself over to grief on thy account and will no more come into the city; in a mean hut, far from all other dwellings, he has taken up his abode, and there, rejecting all pleasure and all comfort, he leads a wretched life; the poorest clothes cover him, and he sleeps, like the lowest herdsmen, in winter among the ashes of the hearth, and in summer on a heap of fallen leaves in the open air. So also it is no lingering sickness that has brought me to this place, neither was it one of the arrows of Artemis that slew me, but rather the longing after thee, my beloved son, for whom I have so long waited in vain!”
At these words, Odysseus was deeply moved and stretched out his arms to embrace his mother, but only the empty air met his touch. More sorrowfully than ever, he now cried out, “Why dost thou escape from my embrace? Art thou perhaps nothing but an apparition, sent hither by the queen of the Shades to mock my grief?”
But his mother answered, “Dear son, this is the lot of mortals when life has departed from them. The sinews which before held flesh and bones together have been consumed by the heat of the funeral pyre, and the soul flits about hither and thither like a dream. But thou, haste thee to return to the light of the sun and keep in thy remembrance that which thou hast here seen and heard, that one day thou mayest be able to tell it to thy wife.”
These words were the last that the mother of Odysseus was able to speak. The blood she had drunk had now spent its strength, and she flitted from him, an unconscious shadow as before.